Powerlink battle lines drawn

A view of the proposed Sunrise Powerlink route from the Imperial Valley to San Diego. (John Gastaldo / Union-Tribune)

A view of the proposed Sunrise Powerlink route from the Imperial Valley to San Diego. (John Gastaldo / Union-Tribune)

A view of the proposed Sunrise Powerlink route from the Imperial Valley to San Diego. (John Gastaldo / Union-Tribune)

Onell R. Soto, staff writer

The future of the Sunrise Powerlink is shaping up as a battle between the president of the California Public Utilities Commission and one of the commissioners, with advice from the governor and leaders of the state Senate.

PUC President Michael Peevey is backing San Diego Gas & Electric's arguments that the 1,000-megawatt line is needed to ensure a reliable power supply for San Diego, and that it will foster development of electricity from renewable sources.

Commissioner Dian Grueneich is skeptical of the proposal. She says the line can't be justified unless SDG&E uses it substantially for “green” electricity, generated by the sun, wind or water heated underground. She wants to mandate conditions to make sure that happens, conditions that SDG&E finds untenable.

Yesterday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote a letter to the commission, urging it to side with Peevey when it takes up the issue tomorrow.

“This project is a vital link in California's renewable energy future and must be approved as soon as possible,” he wrote.

Schwarzenegger also voiced his support of the project last year.

In yesterday's letter, he conceded that the state will fail to meet its goal of getting 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010.

Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Lisa Page said the governor has weighed in on PUC projects on issues such as energy efficiency and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.

The head of the San Diego group the Utility Consumers'Action Network, Michael Shames, doesn't remember another time when a governor has written to the commission urging it to vote in a particular way.

Schwarzenegger's letter came just days after Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and three other senators wrote him saying the Peevey proposal could allow imports of energy from burning coal.

The senators, including Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, urged him to back conditions like those that Grueneich proposed to ensure the line is used for green power.

The conditions they proposed would require SDG&E to get a third of its power from renewable sources, ban it from using Sunrise for coal power, require it to replace any contracts that fall through with new renewable power from the same region and establish performance milestones.

SDG&E has said it will voluntarily do the things Steinberg and Kehoe are asking for, but it won't submit to requirements as a condition for getting approval to build Sunrise.

Grueneich modified her initial conditions in response to SDG&E complaints, but even the new requirements, which would mandate proof that the line would be used for energy from the sun and other renewable sources, were unacceptable to the utility.

The company said it would not build the line under those conditions because it can't be sure it will pay off.

The debate over the Peevey and Grueneich proposals is an indication that the commission is likely to dismiss the recommendations of administrative law judges who said it cannot be justified economically or environmentally.

No matter what, the PUC's decision might not be the end of the story.

If the five-member commission rejects the line or approves it with conditions the utility finds onerous, SDG&E can appeal to the courts and the federal government.

A 2005 law allows the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to override decisions from state agencies on the siting of power lines in areas where federal regulators say there is not enough transmission capacity. Southern California is in one of two such regions.

If the PUC approves the line, opponents have vowed to appeal in court, claiming the decision was not based on sound scientific assumptions and solid economic models.

The 123-mile line is proposed to run along Interstate 8 and then along the edges of the Cleveland National Forest instead of through the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, as originally planned.

It has also ballooned in cost, to $2 billion from $1.3 billion.

If it is built, the state's electric customers will pick up the tab. As a regulated utility, SDG&E will be guaranteed an 11.5 percent rate of return for running it.

Over the life of the project, it could make $1.5 billion for the utility, according to the Utility Consumers' Action Network. An SDG&E spokeswoman said guessing at the value of the line to the company is speculation.

The line will carry enough power to supply about 650,000 households. It will roughly parallel an existing line along the U.S.-Mexico border.

SDG&E says the line is needed for three basic reasons: to ensure the lights stay on, to help it meet state requirements for use of non-fossil electricity and to lower costs of electricity.

To get approval from the commission, the utility has to justify the financial and environmental costs. If built, the line will forever change the landscape as its 150-foot towers carry cables across roadless stretches of deserts and mountains.

The PUC commissioned an environmental impact report to assess those questions.

At 11,000 pages, it's the biggest such report ever for a power line.

The report looked at the effect on endangered species and whether the line would spur development of solar power. It considered whether it's better to put solar panels on San Diego roofs and whether it's cheaper to build natural-gas power plants near the coast.

Now it is up to the commission to determine where all that information leads. Each of the proposals – by the judges, by Grueneich and by Peevey – draws different conclusions.

Part of the difference is because of the difficulty to predict, so there has been a lot of fighting over how to interpret economic assumptions, like the future price of natural gas.

And part of it is that the conclusions seem to depend on who is interpreting the numbers.

The Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity, for instance, say the line's environmental damage eclipses the benefits it will bring, even without crossing Anza-Borrego.

The Utility Consumers' Action Network says there are other, cheaper ways to ensure San Diego gets the power it needs.

People who live along the route say it will destroy their rural way of life.

The California Independent System Operator, which runs the state's power grid, says San Diego is hanging by the skin of its teeth and could face shortages and blackouts soon without another power line.

Michael Gardner of the Union-Tribune Sacramento Bureau contributed to this report.

DETAILS

California Public Utilities Commission hearing on the Sunrise Powerlink

Proponents: It is needed because San Diego could face a shortage of power as early as 2010 and SDG&E is under a mandate to get at least a fifth of its power from nonfossil fuel sources, many of which could be developed in the Imperial Valley.

Opponents: It costs too much and there are alternatives to deal with the problems it is trying to solve, such as improving other transmission lines and generating more power locally from sources like the sun.